Keen market observers across the Crypto-Verse have noted two coins doing astronomically well in a period of Bitcoin (BTC) uncertainty. Bitcoin has shown that it is the King of the crypto markets. The trends of all other coins and tokens are tied at the hips to BTC’s performance. When Bitcoin pumps, every other coin and token follows suite. If it tanks, the rest of the market tanks like Kamikaze Pilots during WWII. But two coins have shown resilience.

One of those coins is Litecoin (LTC) and it’s gains in the market can be attributed to two factors. The first is the supposed Litecoin Cash (LCC) fork on the 18th of this month. The fork is yet to be confirmed. At the moment of writing this, no one on the web has confirmed that they have received the promised LCC coins. The second reason for Litecoin’s surge is the pending release of Litepay on the 26th of this month.

The other coin doing somersaults in the upward direction is Ethereum Classic (ETC) which was around $14.34 on the 6th of February. It is now trading at $36.28 after peaking at $43.96. This is a 152% increase to date and using the value on the 6th of February. When you use the peak value, it is a 206% increase in 17 days. This are wonderful gains.

So why is Ethereum Classic (ETC) gaining?

Ethereum Classic (ETC) is doing astronomically well in the markets due to the Callisto (CLO) Airdrop announcement by the coin’s development team who are working on the Callisto Network Project. The ratio of the Airdrop is 1:1 and will happen after the 5,500,000 block of the Ethereum Classic ledger. We are currently on block 5,440,755. The targeted block will be reached on or before March 5th according to my research.

The Callisto Network Project is an experimental change in the Ethereum Classic protocol with the aim of establishing a smart contract based on-chain governance system, that has a built in transparent financial funding mechanism. The protocol will balance the interest in the network between the miners and coin holders.

Callisto (CLO) is a separate token and will have a separate blockchain to that of Ethereum Classic. Callisto also introduces a cold staking protocol that rewards coin holders for being participants in the network by providing nodes. But to note is that for cold staking, a node is not entirely necessary. Owners of CLO can lock their funds in a Callisto Treasure smart contract for 1 month or longer. Each cold-staker account can participate in the decision making process by submitting a development proposal to the Callisto treasury smart contract or voting for or against already existing proposals.

The question now is, how do you claim your Callisto (CLO) tokens.

This should automatically happen immediately after the fork and depends if your Ethereum Classic (ETC) coins are in an exchange or a wallet like MyEtherWallet. In the case of the former, I am not 100% sure that exchanges will make the token available immediately for the owner. In the case of having ETC in a wallet, you need to configure the wallet to show Callisto Tokens and you will see them there.

In a nutshell, the Callisto Airdrop on block 5,500,000 is the cause of the price jump of Ethereum Classic (ETC) in the markets. Many traders are jumping and buying ETC in the hopes of literally getting free Callisto (CLO) tokens. This is a good strategy to have, especially if the Callisto project becomes succesful and the token value goes up by a good margin. It is up to you to decide if you want in on the excitement.